How It Will Be for vicky_v
Title: How It Will Be
Author: agenttrojie
Rating: PG (kissing)
Warnings: Aaaaaangst.
Disclaimer: Not even slightly mine.
Prompt: For vicky_v. Using Samhain to also symbolise the end of Uther's rule and the beginning of Arthur's, which includes hiding in corn fields. (I went with wheat, given corn shouldn't really have been growing in England at this point in history and I am a botanical pedant like that :P)
He isn't king yet.
He's never been one to run away from his responsibilities, but he isn't king yet, and so they aren't his responsibilities.
You can't say goodbye to a man who isn't there, not really, lying silent and immobile in his bed with only the slow and faltering pound of his heart to distinguish him from a corpse. Four days Arthur sat by his father's bedside only to realise that Uther is gone, gone somewhere different and new and far away, and that his body is just lagging behind.
But Arthur is not king yet, and it is Samhain, self-indulgent Samhain, one last wild night before winter settles in, and what Arthur wants to do on his Samhain night is to escape reality.
He is not king yet.
***
They took the wheat from the fields three days ago, straw for floors and bedding cut down and taken as well, and the stubble of the stalks is all that remains. Arthur settles himself in the corner made by two hedgerows, where he can see the glow and smell the smoke of the celebrations and watch his castle from afar.
Arthur's summer is over, and something has scythed away all the certainty he thought was rooted deep in his bones. The dark half of the year starts tomorrow, and Arthur's father is slipping away with the long days and warm nights. When he's gone, everything is going to be hard, cold, shocking to the touch, full of contrast. Command touches hearts like frost touches leaves - makes them hard and curled and blackened anywhere they're tender. Arthur saw it in his father and has felt it in himself.
He doesn't want to turn to winter.
There is a footstep-rhythm crunching noise, getting closer. When Merlin plonks himself down on the soil next to Arthur, he says nothing.
Their knees knock together, and Merlin smells of bread, rich and soft and familiar. Arthur takes a breath, tasting the words before he says them.
'It won't be long,' he says.
Merlin looks at him slant-wise before saying 'No.'
'I will do my best,' Arthur says, after another while has passed, 'to be a good king.' Everyone has avoided this subject with him, or rather, they've assumed. Assumed he would take over, assumed he'll be his father over again, just younger and blonder. Assumed he wants their help and guidance and advice and, on occasion, thinly-veiled orders. There will be a short, sharp and subtle cull amongst the ranking nobles when Arthur takes the throne.
And see? He is already plotting moves rather than grieving for his father. The cold weather is settling in.
'I know,' Merlin says. He looks up at the rising moon in the pink-grey sky, and takes Arthur's hand. The castle rears up like some great leviathan and hides the horizon, fences them in like this is all of their world, but the sky is open and darkening before their eyes, and Merlin's hand is very warm over Arthur's.
They don't touch often. Something has crackled between them since they met, but it is so fragile that holding it could snap it open, break it into dust. Better to keep the space and let it live, but now Merlin is holding Arthur's hand, and it burns still, tensioned like lutestrings.
'Don't be a king like your father, though,' Merlin says, and now he looks at Arthur, his eyes wide in the fading light, serious, earnest, urgent like only Merlin can be, as if he is the only person in the world who will speak the truth.
'My father is a greater king than I could ever be,' Arthur replies, because it is the thing to say, and because he wants, oh, he wants it to be true. But the dispassion that he can regard his performance on the sparring ground with, the calculation he applies to a map and the discernment he uses to examine a horse force him to see otherwise. His father made mistakes, wagered wrong, sometimes. But he wants it to be true, nevertheless. He loves his father.
'I have to show you something,' Merlin says, his voice wound tight. He tugs on Arthur's hand, drawing him to his feet. 'Come on.'
Arthur should ask where he's being led, but he doesn't. Merlin's fingers interlace with Arthur's, and Merlin pulls him along the boundary of the hedgerow until they reach a stile, and climb over into the edges of the encroaching forest, where the trees arch together, a ragged overhang between the old world wilderness and the new world that the kings of Camelot have carved out over the centuries.
Merlin rests up against an ancient tree, looking more at ease here than anywhere else Arthur has seen him, in the rough dark of twilight. He lets go of Arthur's hand - Arthur settles in next to him, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, because he isn't quite ready to not be touching yet.
Camelot isn't as big, from here, a little higher up, a little further away. It doesn't devour the horizon like it did from the field.
'They love you, you know,' Merlin murmurs softly. 'They'll mourn your father, but they know you'll be a great king.'
'I wish I had their certainty,' Arthur says, with an edge of bitterness.
'I wish you did, too,' Merlin replies. 'I wish you could see yourself sometimes, I wish you could see Camelot as it's going to be, when you're king.'
As he says it, his fingers find Arthur's again, and he leans closer. Arthur clears his throat, hoping to clear air as well. 'You said you had something to show me,' he says.
Merlin doesn't say anything for a moment, still apparently staring at the looming bulk of the castle in the deepening shadow, the glow of the fires in the lower town. 'Well?' Arthur prompts.
'I hope the Dragon was right,' Merlin mutters suddenly, almost too quiet for Arthur to catch, and squeezed Arthur's hand tight. 'Just watch,' he says, a wobble in his voice. Arthur turns his head to look at him, unnerved by that fracture in his servant's calm.
Merlin's eyes, before they close, flicker gold.
Arthur's breath catches in his throat at about the same time there's an almighty swirl of fox-red-orange, the last gasp of autumn billowing around them, and a second's breadth of winter, spindle-limbed trees fretting the sky.
But Arthur doesn't get enough time to do anything sensible about this acceleration of his nightmare or about Merlin ensorcelling him, because everything bursts into riotous bud and then bloom, and then Merlin turns to him, this false spring night like a cloak about his shouders, and says 'It'll be like this, Arthur, it'll be like this,' breathlessly and almost frightened, some kind of worship in his tone, and their fingers are still entwined like vines, and Arthur drags him close and breathes his breath, kisses him.
It is illegal and immoral and wrong, so wrong, but so right, as Merlin's illusion fades, the progression of seasons turning back the way it's supposed to be, and Arthur, the prince, kisses Merlin, the warlock, tastes hope like dew rising from his skin, and decides then to damn the law that damns this moment.
Because he is not king yet. But he will be soon.
Author: agenttrojie
Rating: PG (kissing)
Warnings: Aaaaaangst.
Disclaimer: Not even slightly mine.
Prompt: For vicky_v. Using Samhain to also symbolise the end of Uther's rule and the beginning of Arthur's, which includes hiding in corn fields. (I went with wheat, given corn shouldn't really have been growing in England at this point in history and I am a botanical pedant like that :P)
He isn't king yet.
He's never been one to run away from his responsibilities, but he isn't king yet, and so they aren't his responsibilities.
You can't say goodbye to a man who isn't there, not really, lying silent and immobile in his bed with only the slow and faltering pound of his heart to distinguish him from a corpse. Four days Arthur sat by his father's bedside only to realise that Uther is gone, gone somewhere different and new and far away, and that his body is just lagging behind.
But Arthur is not king yet, and it is Samhain, self-indulgent Samhain, one last wild night before winter settles in, and what Arthur wants to do on his Samhain night is to escape reality.
He is not king yet.
***
They took the wheat from the fields three days ago, straw for floors and bedding cut down and taken as well, and the stubble of the stalks is all that remains. Arthur settles himself in the corner made by two hedgerows, where he can see the glow and smell the smoke of the celebrations and watch his castle from afar.
Arthur's summer is over, and something has scythed away all the certainty he thought was rooted deep in his bones. The dark half of the year starts tomorrow, and Arthur's father is slipping away with the long days and warm nights. When he's gone, everything is going to be hard, cold, shocking to the touch, full of contrast. Command touches hearts like frost touches leaves - makes them hard and curled and blackened anywhere they're tender. Arthur saw it in his father and has felt it in himself.
He doesn't want to turn to winter.
There is a footstep-rhythm crunching noise, getting closer. When Merlin plonks himself down on the soil next to Arthur, he says nothing.
Their knees knock together, and Merlin smells of bread, rich and soft and familiar. Arthur takes a breath, tasting the words before he says them.
'It won't be long,' he says.
Merlin looks at him slant-wise before saying 'No.'
'I will do my best,' Arthur says, after another while has passed, 'to be a good king.' Everyone has avoided this subject with him, or rather, they've assumed. Assumed he would take over, assumed he'll be his father over again, just younger and blonder. Assumed he wants their help and guidance and advice and, on occasion, thinly-veiled orders. There will be a short, sharp and subtle cull amongst the ranking nobles when Arthur takes the throne.
And see? He is already plotting moves rather than grieving for his father. The cold weather is settling in.
'I know,' Merlin says. He looks up at the rising moon in the pink-grey sky, and takes Arthur's hand. The castle rears up like some great leviathan and hides the horizon, fences them in like this is all of their world, but the sky is open and darkening before their eyes, and Merlin's hand is very warm over Arthur's.
They don't touch often. Something has crackled between them since they met, but it is so fragile that holding it could snap it open, break it into dust. Better to keep the space and let it live, but now Merlin is holding Arthur's hand, and it burns still, tensioned like lutestrings.
'Don't be a king like your father, though,' Merlin says, and now he looks at Arthur, his eyes wide in the fading light, serious, earnest, urgent like only Merlin can be, as if he is the only person in the world who will speak the truth.
'My father is a greater king than I could ever be,' Arthur replies, because it is the thing to say, and because he wants, oh, he wants it to be true. But the dispassion that he can regard his performance on the sparring ground with, the calculation he applies to a map and the discernment he uses to examine a horse force him to see otherwise. His father made mistakes, wagered wrong, sometimes. But he wants it to be true, nevertheless. He loves his father.
'I have to show you something,' Merlin says, his voice wound tight. He tugs on Arthur's hand, drawing him to his feet. 'Come on.'
Arthur should ask where he's being led, but he doesn't. Merlin's fingers interlace with Arthur's, and Merlin pulls him along the boundary of the hedgerow until they reach a stile, and climb over into the edges of the encroaching forest, where the trees arch together, a ragged overhang between the old world wilderness and the new world that the kings of Camelot have carved out over the centuries.
Merlin rests up against an ancient tree, looking more at ease here than anywhere else Arthur has seen him, in the rough dark of twilight. He lets go of Arthur's hand - Arthur settles in next to him, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee, because he isn't quite ready to not be touching yet.
Camelot isn't as big, from here, a little higher up, a little further away. It doesn't devour the horizon like it did from the field.
'They love you, you know,' Merlin murmurs softly. 'They'll mourn your father, but they know you'll be a great king.'
'I wish I had their certainty,' Arthur says, with an edge of bitterness.
'I wish you did, too,' Merlin replies. 'I wish you could see yourself sometimes, I wish you could see Camelot as it's going to be, when you're king.'
As he says it, his fingers find Arthur's again, and he leans closer. Arthur clears his throat, hoping to clear air as well. 'You said you had something to show me,' he says.
Merlin doesn't say anything for a moment, still apparently staring at the looming bulk of the castle in the deepening shadow, the glow of the fires in the lower town. 'Well?' Arthur prompts.
'I hope the Dragon was right,' Merlin mutters suddenly, almost too quiet for Arthur to catch, and squeezed Arthur's hand tight. 'Just watch,' he says, a wobble in his voice. Arthur turns his head to look at him, unnerved by that fracture in his servant's calm.
Merlin's eyes, before they close, flicker gold.
Arthur's breath catches in his throat at about the same time there's an almighty swirl of fox-red-orange, the last gasp of autumn billowing around them, and a second's breadth of winter, spindle-limbed trees fretting the sky.
But Arthur doesn't get enough time to do anything sensible about this acceleration of his nightmare or about Merlin ensorcelling him, because everything bursts into riotous bud and then bloom, and then Merlin turns to him, this false spring night like a cloak about his shouders, and says 'It'll be like this, Arthur, it'll be like this,' breathlessly and almost frightened, some kind of worship in his tone, and their fingers are still entwined like vines, and Arthur drags him close and breathes his breath, kisses him.
It is illegal and immoral and wrong, so wrong, but so right, as Merlin's illusion fades, the progression of seasons turning back the way it's supposed to be, and Arthur, the prince, kisses Merlin, the warlock, tastes hope like dew rising from his skin, and decides then to damn the law that damns this moment.
Because he is not king yet. But he will be soon.